Creative theft.
My client and teacher, Scott Dikkers, published an article about this the other day.
(In 1988, Scott co-founded The Onion, the satirical newspaper, with three friends at the University of Wisconsin. Since then, he’s been a prolific writer, cartoonist, podcaster, and director.)
I get asked about how to deal with creative theft sometimes — mainly by folks who work in copywriting and marketing — and Scott’s take is sharp and inspiring, helpful.
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So I’m re-sharing it here:
It’s happened to me over and over again…⚈ I pitched "Future Boy" to Disney, a screenplay about a boy from the future who gets stuck in the present when his time machine breaks down. Five years later, the Disney Channel debuted "Phil of the Future," a TV series about a boy from the future who gets stuck in the present when his time machine breaks down.⚈ I enjoyed big success with my comic strip, Jim’s Journal, about a stick figure character who tells you what he did every day. Five years after I published my final strip, Jeff Kinney launched Diary of a Wimpy Kid.⚈ And I can’t even count how many times someone has made a fake news publication identical to The Onion. There’s gotta be a million of ’em.So, how do I feel about all this? Well, the thing is, you can’t copyright an idea, a concept, or a genre.If someone outright steals something you wrote VERBATIM, that’s different. And it's a problem. You should always protect your work by getting it officially copyrighted at the Library of Congress or registering it with the Screen Writers Guild. If anyone ever steals from you by copying your exact words and sentences (which is extremely rare), you need to be protected.But when it comes to any of this other kind of "borrowing"... don’t sweat it. It’s gonna happen. Great minds think alike, and entertainment is not a zero-sum game. You can still be successful even if someone lifts a lot of what you do.My philosophy is… who cares? I’m proud of my work, and the work of other people doesn't affect me.Picasso said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." I think he was mostly being facetious, but it’s true that all artists get inspired. And that's certainly not a bad thing. People inspired me, after all. It’s the circle of life!The best defense is a good offense. And the best offense is to keep creating. Keep writing. Keep producing work, and keep putting it out there. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but someone who actually executes an idea and presents it to audiences is a rare jewel. A relentless creator like that will always have a leg up in the highly competitive arena of show business.Scott’s website is chock-full of advice like this.
His focus is comedy writing, yeh, but if you read between the lines, you’ll find endless creativity lessons throughout.
Enjoy!
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Hey there, thanks for reading. :)If you want more “micro” content, feel free to explore 100s of articles, interviews, courses, and series — all free. Enjoy!Eddie Shleyner
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